


Lost, Never Found

by matrixrefugee



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 21:35:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17650301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: After the final battle against the Alliance, Zoey has never seen her captain so low.





	Lost, Never Found

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**comment_fic**](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/)'s "author's choice, "there are no atheists in foxholes likewise, there are no believers in charnal houses"

The fighting had stopped thirteen days ago, but that only meant the Alliance had stopped shooting at them. Now the Independants were still fighting the worst of the battle: just to stay alive. The soldiers who hadn't died of their wounds were now dying of hunger or going stir-crazy.

Mal had managed to keep up the survivors' spirits or to console and comfort the dying, with his wry jokes and words of inspiration, but Zoey noticed he'd stopped quoting from the Good Book. Mal had often joked about becoming a Shepherd after the war was over and the Alliance had been been shown what-for, seeing how he'd fairly done the work of a Shepherd, but he'd stopped making that joke a long time ago.

The morning of the fourteenth day, Zoey found Mal's silver crucifix trodden in the dust of the fox hole where they'd bunked down. Picking it up and pocketing it, she went in search of Mal, eventually finding him digging a hole to bury the wrapped body of a private who'd died during the night.

"Lose something, sir?" she said, holding up the crucifix.

Mal looked up from the grave and thrust the shovel into the ground, leaning on it. "Must've caught on something when I was scrimmigin' around lookin' for a shovel," he said, then pulled the shovel out and went on digging.

Of course it did, Zoey thought. "You want me to hang onto it, till you're finished there?" she asked.

"Yeah, gotta get this feller underground 'fore th' buzzards find 'um," Mal said, not looking up.

Zoey slipped the crucifix into her pocket and left Mal to his work.

He never did come back for the crucifix.


End file.
